The two traits every entrepreneur needs #blindpost

It’s been a while since I’ve written a #blindpost, so I was excited when Joe sent me the article, The Two Traits Every Entrepreneur Needs. In the spirit of the #blindpost rules, I did not read the article but instead took the title and wrote my interpretation of it.

The Two Traits Every Enterpreneur Needs
I decided to take this from a global standpoint rather than thinking of it from the lens of someone starting a brand new company, or someone further down the road running a successful startup. No matter what kind of entrepreneur you are, if you have started a business and expect to be successful, you need these two traits:

Never quit attitude

Work ethic

Being an entrepreneur means believing in yourself so much that you simply cannot quit. That does not mean you are unwilling to completely change your business model. Or to change course, or even replace yourself as CEO! Pivoting is a critical part of creating a successful business. And the ability to stick it out and live to fight another day is imperative.

When I spoke a little while back at the Success Summit in Athens, I talked about what I call Big “F” failure and small “f” failure. Big “F” failure is when you completely lose the game and you have to shut it down completely. And look, there is a time for that. But hopefully, you’re experiencing manageable small “f” failures along the way, learning from them, and giving yourself a better chance of making it. 

Every successful entrepreneur has a freakish work ethic. I’ve never worked harder than in the first ten years of my life as an entrepreneur (from when I started my first company in college at UNC Charlotte.) Today, with a large family and several nonprofit commitments, my time is much more efficient and optimized (not to mention I get up very early to make sure I have 10+ hours a day to get work done and still have dinner with my family.)

The fact is, I’ve never met a successful entrepreneur that didn’t work his or her butt off. You have to, because the odds of creating a company that makes it are really low. Like, almost all new businesses fail. So you have to give yourself every edge over the competition, and creating more hours in the day is one of those ways.

Traits that missed the cut:

• Positivity
• Ability to delegate
• Decisiveness / the ability to make decisions
• The stomach to make tough decisions
• Ability to admit mistakes
• Vision

~ if you liked this blindpost, here are more you can check out. And a handful of my friends will suggest blindposts for me to write from time to time, please feel free to do that too!